Have sex with someone else. Or several someone elses. So you won't be tempted.
Uh, not while you're having sex with Tia.
Tia, it's clear we have to have sex. If only we could stop talking!
"Quick, find someone else" was my reaction, too. Any reliable dates-or-friendly-exes from a past life that you can summon?
Yeah, I think you're supposed to think about baseball, or something.
Hopefully this won't turn into an exclusively jokey thread, because it does sound like a really bad situation to be in.
In addition to the "have other sex" advice, I'd say enlist a real-life person that you can talk to about this, so that it doesn't become something mythical in your head. If you can go home each day, call someone up and laugh about those crazy kids, it's far less likely that you'll give in.
Craiglist, Nerve? I understand there's a meet-up in New York tomorrow.
There is the old standbye: imagine him or her on the toilet with the runs.
I should mention that I've faced this before in individual circumstances and stood my ground mightily.
Adorable Scottish girl: I guess I'm most fascinated by the quasi-orgasmic process of the text. [inches closer] Know what I mean?
AWB [stepping back]: My God, I love your toenail polish. Bluish-red is really the color of the season, innit?
Christ, I proofread my post and can't even proofread my name. I blame the Kirin.
Ogged: This is very good advice, which, in fact, I was on the phone trying to enact.
SCMT: We've been doing Swift, so that's already a part of the erotic conversation. Unfortunately.
As far as exes, my pride gets in the way. I have several laid up in the wings, but I ended things too badly to make it happen snap-snap.
Oh lord, that sounds torturous (and also delicious, which makes it all the worse, of course). I agree with 8, if at all possible. If it's not possible, maybe have someone you email about it regularly, but in a way where you make it all amusing and absurd and as unsexy as possible?
You should also keep in mind that liking it and being vulnerable to it are not the same as giving in to it. You can even decide that you will enjoy it some, but that you'll never ever let one of them touch you.
I guess what I'm saying is I don't know which to bet on: surviving this intact or minimizing the damage.
I know nothing of grad school, but my instincts say don't talk to faculty or anyone in your program.
Get some very studly, distinguished looking guy to visit you publicly where the can see. Let them think that you live in this supersexy world they know nothing about, and that they're just jerky little kids.
You could try wearing one of these.
Supports a good cause, too.
I trust your read on it, but is it possible that SGEB and GBG are flirting by proxy and you're just caught in the middle? I'm trying to conceive of being aggressive enough to have hit on one of my teachers and failing, but I was a shy, science-fiction-reading boy.
Trying to imagine and failing; not trying to imagine hitting on a teacher and failing, which would be all too easy (and deflating) to imagine.
I thought the proxy thing was happening at first, and was totally relieved to see them hanging out on campus together, but it's become clear that I'm each of their main targets. I wish they'd just get each other off and leave me alone, but then, I've been in a sexual competition for a woman before against a man, and won, and I remember how good it felt. It wasn't a professor, but I still feel some kind of karma smacking me around here.
Really, never. It is not going to happen, and you really have to decide that. I am sure it is 1000% as nuclear hot as hell, but no.
If you really and truly have a faculty member you would feel comfortable talking to about this, it's not a bad idea, but is there such a person? (On the other hand, if you have to tone down and recast your own feelings enough in talking to him or her, that might help, too.)
A. It's totally fucking awesome.
B. I submit Unfogged take up a collection to get you an escort with the condition that you post about it afterwards. Think of it as research.
26: You are right. It's not going to happen, and it wouldn't even be satisfying if it did. I haven't had sex with someone under 32 for several years for a reason: 21-year-olds suck in bed. 21-year-olds suck in bed. 21-year-olds suck in bed.
And yes, there is a dear friend on the faculty who owes me an indiscretion and who I think would understand this very well.
Also, Bear, you might not want to talk about it too much to too many people period, just because erotic drama can get inflated both by not talking and by working it over and over in conversation. No one knows better than I how much fun the conversation is, but if you really want to avoid anything untoward happening, I say get thee about the fucking.
As it is, when I tell the class to get in a closer circle and the SGEB places his desk six inches from mine and smiles, the only thing I can think to say is, "Please don't be weird. Please. Please don't be weird." To which the GBG laughs and laughs and laughs. AAAUGH!
But, Tia, I do feel like the magic of feelings dissipates through the repetition of representation, to some degree. You talk out a desire often enough, and it becomes ridiculous, or at least a mental and less-bodily thing.
don't talk to faculty or anyone in your program.
This, absolutely.
oy, not for me. But if that's how it goes for you, then then go ahead and talk. I just remember that in my college days, my various tragic love affairs were intensified by how good I was at enlisting a supportive audience.
Right... talking about it as a mythic problem only enhances the delicious torment. Make it funny.
Also, I think you need to recast yourself. You're not the target of their seduction, you're the unattainable object of their lust. That's fine, and good, and fun, and a self-esteem boost, but (you say, tossing your hair with a flourish) they should be so lucky.
Come on people, the other obvious ploy here is to fuck with them. Wait until they're really laying it on thick, then "you've been great in this class, I think of you like a son"
34: Yes, they should be so lucky, and this is how I've felt about even my most attractive students in better days, but I am afraid I wear my breakup like my skin. They asked about it and know about it. I'm not sure, at this point, I can tolerate being an object of anyone's lust, much less the object of two extraordinarily hot (HOT) hot students for whom lust is all they have.
In the past, I've dealt with these situations by, as with the Scottish girl, talking about, "My goodness, isn't that an attractive outfit?" etc., diffusing the lust onto some outward sign. But we just did several C17 poems about how complimenting clothing is merely a distraction for talking about the human body. I feel like the noose was laid, in part, by my pedagogy.
I should mention that my earlier section of this class has no such erotic tension. They're really into the material, and understand it ethically aside from any game with me. Oh, cursed afternoon class!
I'm on the phone now with the Chestnut, who claims that my twin sister, called the Chestnut, needs to intervene on my behalf.
I feel like a noose of seduction is tightening around my throat.
Oh, please. You're on your way to becoming the kind of Chronicle of Higher Education column that people roll their eyes at. Ogged is right: talk to some non-enabling other so that you don't run away with yourself. In the meantime, go re-read Lolita or something.
my twin sister [...] needs to intervene on my behalf.
Hott.
17 is exactly right, as you well know, AWB. Giving an inch to these kids' sexual power play is depriving the other students of your attention. Don't tell an advisor, but do watch your back. They may be 21, but they're fucking around in some very dangerous territory that they probably don't have any idea how to control.
21-year-olds are bad in bed. 21-year-olds are bad in bed.
This reminds me of The Corrections.
It may be helpful to remember that chances are, to the student's mind, you're not part of the category of authentically desireable women. Not that they're not flirting with you, but that it's not an implicit invitation, unlike normal flirting, but a way to ensure that they have good rapport with the fun, attractive professor who determines their grades.
Re: talking to faculty, I'm very clearly in the minority with saying it could be a good idea. I think it all depends on the person and probably also on how well you can cast it as something kind of funny, maybe, or in any case as something that you will never actually do. (There is no one in my own department I'd talk to in your situation, but then, no one owes me an indescretion, either.) Maybe the best thing is to hold that option in reserve?
I'm not saying this is a good idea, but what are the negative consequences of sincerely insulting (or doing something other to shut down) one of them, in a way that doesn't make the other think they have more of a chance.
Also, this post reminds me that other people's lives are very different from mine.
I don't agree with 42. There are other comments I don't agree with, this is just the most recent one.
38, 40: Yes, yes, of course we're right, and of course I'm never going to do a thing or let anyone else do a thing. Sigh. Dangerous Liaisons is more my style than Lolita, and more accurate for the situation.
21-year-olds are bad in bed
Yeah, but two of 'em = one 42-year-old.
44: Not to the extent that the students would be seriously weirded out in the alternate world where WB was receptive? I figure that since both a male and female student are flirting, chances are WB isn't sending off any vibes except that "i'm cute, open, and delicious to converse with." Doubting it's even a real infatuation.
They may be 21, but they're fucking around in some very dangerous territory that they probably don't have any idea how to control.
As someone with the immediate experience of being that age, this advice is absolutely correct. We really have absolutely no idea what in the sam hell we are doing in these situations.
Additionally, I wouldn't neglect the possibility that they aren't actually aware of the degree to which they are fucking with you. One of my friends worked himself into an awkward situation with a TA and claims he was has no clue as to how said situation arose. This is a person who is commonly regarded as being quite suave. Beware judging sexual agency by adult standards.
I don't agree with 42 either. I know that most students (including me) secretly (or not-so-secretly) think that it would be totally hott to have a wild affair with a professor. They're probably serious, which is why I endorse w/d's shut-them-down solution. But maybe I'm just mean.
Give a pop quiz and flunk them without returning the quizzes?
I think there's a difference between thinking your prof is hot, and thinking the girl in your class as hot, and the first is largely influenced by love-of-the-status rather than the hot prof herself.
I've had a few grad student friends asked out by students after the class finished, but they don't get asked out by undergrads that they know outside of class, just the ones that had the hot-for-teacher complex.
Also, this post reminds me that other people's lives are very different from mine.
I was thinking the same thing. But this post did get me to go over to AWB's blog and read all of the post-breakup posts and I thought they were all extremely well written.
My experience as a student was that in the cases where I felt an erotic element in the teacher/student relationship my impulse was always to sublimate it as quickly as possible, so I have no comment on the situation discribed in this post.
I know! Schedule oral presentations and give cold reviews of their public speaking skills afterwards. That one always worked for me.
read all of the post-breakup posts and I thought they were all extremely well written
Shameless, Nick. Shameless.
Sigh. Dangerous Liaisons is more my style than Lolita, and more accurate for the situation.
I'm sure it's more your style but I doubt it's more appropriate. I didn't mean reread Lolita for the "Ew, Lolita is underage" parts, I meant reread it for the "Ew, look at how good Humbert is at talking-himself-into-it while convincing himself he's being victimized" parts.
Shameless, Nick. Shameless.
But objectively true.
Cala, I have a rebuttal, but insfoar as my goal is to dissuade AWB from sleeping with her students, I don't think describing the exact scenario via which I could see her ending up sleeping with the students is helpful. Also, while their precise intentions are important in calibrating a response, I don't think they're that important in deciding on a response on an only slightly more abstract level.
Two thoughts come to mind:
(1) like many others have said: -no- -way- tell anbody else on your faculty. fuhgeddaboudit.
(2) what happened to -rules-? I remember when I was in grad school, one day, a fellow (female) student told me that the thing was, all the females entered grad school, and were hit on by every single male in the department. Why? well, 'cos they were female and single. And since this was engineering, there were 10 males for every female. And these women were, first and foremost, there for a degree. It was the office. A job. I decided, that day, that I would never chase wimmin in my own field. Period. Rules make life simple. Oh, of course, almost every woman in my year (and every year after) ended up marrying a guy in the same department. But that isn't the point. The -point- is that even if others don't have rules, you -can- have rules.
Who cares that these kids are hot? Who -cares-? Decide for yourself. If you can't decide about things like this, how can you ever prevent yourself from taking a little extra money out of your employer's petty cash? Or double-billing your client, or a host of other illegal or immoral acts? Just -decide- that it isn't something you'll do.
Gonerill, I really don't think I'm a Humbert Humbert figure here, if you don't mind my solipsistic insertion. I'm no sixteen-year-old virgin, but I've made it (I think) very clear to these students that they need to back the fuck off. I'm not victimizing them in any way, I swear. And they're not children. So there's a difference.
I'm also Becks-style tonight, which makes the problem loom larger than it probably is. I appreciate all the sincere, kind, and generous advice. I'm not a student-fucker, and never have been, and never will be, but my God, they do make it hard on a girl.
they do make it hard on a girl
Not if we can help it.
The way that I try to get myself out of these problematic situationa is to convince myself not to be attracted to the person in question. It's hard to do, and requires quite a bit of mental energy, but you've got to focus on the negative. Here's a start: seriously, who says "are you mad at me?" to a teacher in the middle of class. Tool.
The only one who ought to be making it hard on a girl is me.
And I really don't appreciate the comparison with stealing money. Ouch. I haven't done anything wrong, and I won't. And the people here who know me know that this isn't some light breach of ethics. I live for ethics. In fact, if I've presented the problem here, rather than anywhere else, it's because I assume that folks here (mostly) know my commitment to doing the right thing. Up against my human weaknesses and feelings of emotional vulnerability, it's sometimes hard, but I do the right thing, and I will. Making it the easier thing to do would be handy.
Okay, been there, done that. Happens to us all. Here is the golden rule: they are flirting, but they do not know they are flirting. Really. They don't. They think that you are a professor (okay, instructor, whatever) who is safe to idolize because even though you're hella cute and all, well, you're a professor! And a grownup!
In other words there is an invisible line that they are counting on you to maintain. Which is what sucks about young people, the little fucks.
Whatever you do, DON'T talk to other faculty about it. Don't talk to other grad students unless you can absolutely rely on them NOT to giggle or encourage you in any way. Make plans for right after that class so you can't linger and chitty-chat with the little brats. Have someone to meet for coffee or whatever.
And keep reminding yourself that they are crap in bed, and that the enamoredness of the moment is almost entirely about the seductiveness of being idolized. That and the heady rush of being admired as a teacher. It's hard not to fall in love with your students at first. It's a rite of passage. That, and in a few months you will look back at this and think "I can't believe I was so wrapped up in those guys."
Which is what sucks about young people, the little fucks.
Hey, I gave you breakfast recommendations!
Sorry, I'm not being very helpful. Back to the laundromat.
So, for what value of [age] in [age]-year-olds are bad in bed not obviously true? I hope it's less than or equal to 24.
I agree with 66, also, this
Also, while their precise intentions are important in calibrating a response, I don't think they're that important in deciding on a response on an only slightly more abstract level.
isn't quite what I was after. Not so much to calibrate the response, but to give AWB the needed perspective, it's not so much her being an awesome, sexy person as being an awesome, sexy prof.
66: Well, at least I'm not in love with them. That's a start.
I think it will be fine. Of all things, a student from an earlier section of the class has helped ground me a bit. She an older student and knows the material, and what everyone's emotionally going through. I went grocery shopping with her after class this afternoon, and mentioned that there were heavy-duty sexual politics in my afternoon class, and she laughed, not believing students could be that naive about the material. Hearing that from a professor would seem kind of insensitive to the kind of discovery they're undergoing. Hearing it from a student (my own age) is really helpful and clarifying.
Whatever you do, DON'T talk to other faculty about it. Don't talk to other grad students unless you can absolutely rely on them NOT to giggle or encourage you in any way.
Word. I'd go farther and say don't tell anyone. In this type of situation, you'll never regret keeping your mouth shut.
Whatever else happens, when you reach the Victorian part of your course, try not to lie back and think of the queen.
So, for what value of [age] in [age]-year-olds are bad in bed not obviously true? I hope it's less than or equal to 24.
Obviously it's ≤ 24; I'm 24.
Which reminds me -- I have to get up in five hours. Goodnight, all, and thanks! I hope to see some of you tomorrow night!
I hope it's less than or equal to 24
Well, I can't peak for anyone other than myself...
75: untrue; I'm 24 and obviously bad in bed.
77 is teh funny. I'm also 24, and awesome in bed, of course, but maybe the rest of y'all 24-year-olds are fucking it up for the class of 1982.
Gonerill, I really don't think I'm a Humbert Humbert figure here, if you don't mind my solipsistic insertion.
Pardon my eyeroll, but is it really so hard to see that the problem here is not that they are really trying to seduce you, but that you were surrounding their low-grade banter with all that self-dramatizing stuff that made it seem like you were on the verge of falling victim to the impossibly sophisticated, appallingly devious wiles of college juniors?
I'm no sixteen-year-old virgin, but I've made it (I think) very clear to these students that they need to back the fuck off.
Well, in that case what's the problem? Every teacher runs into attractive students who look up to them. Big deal. Just treat the little fuckers like everyone else in the room and remember that, while they may think you are wonderful, they also think you are middle-aged.
67, 70: No one here is my student, so as far as I am concerned you are all peers, rather than "young people."
Just treat the little fuckers like everyone else in the room and remember that, while they may think you are wonderful, they also think you are middle-aged.
Even if AWB were middle-aged, I've known several little fuckers whom the middle age of their wonderful professors would not have stopped for even a moment.
gonerill, seriously. Do you not think it's possible that students actually try to seduce teachers? 'Cause I know a lot of people who have done so. And succeeded.
while they may think you are wonderful, they also think you are middle-aged.
This is demonstrably false as a general rule.
83: Yeah. My last professor-crush was probably 50. And it was a serious crush.
Nobody's really irresistible. Sit down and think, on a cold, gray morning, about everything that's even slightly irritating or bothersome about them, and focus those in your mind's eye until they slowly rise to the surface and begin to warp and dominate your mental image of them. Then take all the little traits you like about them and sort of turn them around in your head and see them from another angle until they become annoying or offensive to you: cute becomes twee, sentimental becomes cloying, funny becomes overbearing, etc. Now you've turned them into a collection of negative traits. When you see them next time, focus only on those from then on. I promise within a week or two you will have cultivated a strong and durable disgust.
They flirt with me and sometime do me seek
With subtle lust, talking in my classroom.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themself in danger
To take words at my class; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Also, since AWB is young, they probably think of her as "god, she's so young," since their other professors are much older. So, yeah, you're just wrong.
No, they don't think she's middle-aged. They are crushing on her because she's a good teacher and she's young enough to seem cool and peer-like. It's a form of self-projection: wow, that person seems kind of like me, and yet they're in this position of authority! It's an early experience for them of feeling connected to/included in a group that they've always seen as "above" them, and of course they're enamored of it.
But they don't get all that, and the flip side is that they *do* see her as an authority figure, which is precisely why they crush out on her. And so therefore it's important to maintain that authority figure-ness, because otherwise you tumble off the pedestal and become just some sleazy t.a. who once tried to hit on them.
gonerill, seriously. Do you not think it's possible that students actually try to seduce teachers? 'Cause I know a lot of people who have done so. And succeeded.
Of course it's possible. I've had students with crushes on me. But that doesn't mean you have to behave like a 16 year old in response. Do these kids own irresistible seduce-o-matics, from whose seduce-o-field no professor can escape? Short of physical attack or abduction, how exactly is this "seduction" supposed to succeed without the full complicity of the Prof/Instructor in question?
And frankly, I'd say the case of were the Prof falsely talks themselves into believing they are being seduced by a student is a lot more common than the case of a student consciously setting out to nail the Professor.
No, they don't think she's middle-aged.
Yeah, you're right about this. I take that bit back. Really it's a role thing, as you say.
Do these kids own irresistible seduce-o-matics, from whose seduce-o-field no professor can escape?
This is from Harvard, it ought to work.
[later]
It is a relativity condenser!
I've actually experienced the "god, she's so young," thing myself, as I became a tenure-track faculty member in my mid-twenties ... I had several experiences with undergrads where the mere fact of them discovering I wasn't a grad TA greatly (and obviously) increased my likeability in their eyes.
Sorry it took me so long to add my 2 cents to this thread, but as a 21-year-old, I have spent the last 20 minutes gently sobbing after reading it.
I agree with B here. The key is to treat them like they're kids, even if you know they're kind of adults. The more your language and your voice subtly reminds them of the age difference and your professional detachment, the more likely they are to give it all a rest. You may come off a little like a bitch at first, since you've been genuinely close to them before, but it'll be worth it for cooling everything off. Also, remember that calling a boy "sweet" in a sincere tone will kill any penis.
I find 87 disturbing in its practiced specificity.
96: Instead of a heart, I just have the rest of your tumorous kidney.
I should also say that I admire 87 in its practiced specificity.
You should hear how I get over nasty breakups.
Now I'm totally convinced that all of my attractive, former professors were, during my tutelage, secretly convinced that I was trying to seduce them, and in fact, that if I had only thought them susceptible to seduction, we would have had teh sex. Oh obtuse, sexy me!
I think 87 is excellent advice. The trick, if you can pull it off, is to re-perceive the situation as lame, not as hott. You can do this by finding things to mock about these students, or by seeing yourself as lame for being affected by them. This has been effective for me.
one could just develop a revulsion for other people.
87 sounds like a much more well-articulated version of what I was thinking of in 62. Of course, this method has its problems: when you try to use it on a friend that you can't help but having a major crush on, it can end up ruining the friendship because you don't like the person at all anymore. So, use with caution.
104 can sometimes be an unfortunate side effect of (overuse of) 87.
But I wouldn't know about that. Here in my hut full of cats and lizards and antique porcelain hand puppets.
105: Isn't the natural defense against the friend-crush to say to yourself, "Why of course I'm not actually attracted to so-and-so, I just care about him/her like a brother/sister, ha ha ho ho!" and repeat as many times as necessary?
107: Yeah, that doesn't really work for me. My problem is that I tend to be friends with really amazing, hott people. Not good.
depends on what kind of family you come from.
ha ha ho ho!
Sorry it took me so long to add my 2 cents to this thread, but as a 21-year-old, I have spent the last 20 minutes gently sobbing after reading it.
Luckily, I am no longer a 21-year-old and am therefore impervious to this problem. Impervious, I say!
Bitch in 66 gets it right (Hi B!).
But there is another piece to it. The role of professor is fraught with symbolism and fetish. Everything B intimates about this is true. But this might not be quite as harmless as she says. That students can get you to respond fliratiously at all can be like counting coup. One example: I remember a young woman walking in late to class and sitting on a bench in the back and me noticing her legs, and the look in her eye when she realized I noticed was electric. It was electric because I'd noticed when I was in the moment of teaching, which was a very intense experience for me, and I was occupying a position of authority, not because I'm simply teh hot. She was a sweet kid. It was American Government, not anything that fraught with sexual con....what am I saying? Well, it wasn't when I taught it. The point is, that if she had used that as an opening to see how much more of a reaction she could get, because she liked that I had a reaction, that starts to be objectification. If these two think of you as an object of their game, rather than a person, you've got troubles.
Fetishes, roles, transgressions of boundaries, all add to the freight. And I liked flirting as much as anyone else. But the fact of the "professor role" and the fact that these kids are doing this in class and its getting in your head in a way other than "that's cute" or "that's flattering" strikes me as worrisome. Don't get played.
But don't we all want to talk about 100 some more? As in, "why yes, text, they likely were all driven mad by the idea that you, text, must be trying to seduce them, likely describing the ensuing sensation via autoasphyxiation metaphor. But it was totally right of you not to pursue anything."
And I will say, "oh, yes, I know I'm a good person, but isn't it such a shame that sexual opportunities abound for me?"
And you will say, "oh yes, it is a shame."
And I will say, "oh yes, it truly is."
But if the professors continue to tantalize me with the possibility that they might have been driven mad by the possibility that I might have had the hots for them, well, it might just drive me to go back in time and have teh sex. But, no, I won't.
Text, my gawd, I totally wanted to bone you! Though I tried to push you out of my mind, you crept into my mind all day, and into my dreams by night. I always woke in the worst way. Sitting through class with you looking at me was torture of the worst sort. If only you had come to my office hours, I would have jumped you so hard you'd still be feelin it. As it was, you never made a move, and I so I managed to just edge out temptation by a razor of a margin. When class ended, I thought it was the right thing. For awhile, there was a nagging neglect, but....I'm totally over you now. Well! that's life.
I heartily agree that it's a shame that sexual opportunities abound for text.
But no matter how hard text worked on the assignments, somehow he never seemed to get a perfect score.
All of us, including me, fuddy-duddies.
Re 87: Sorry to threadjack, but do you-or does anyone--think its possible to practice the inverse? Mediate one someone's good qualities enought to grow to find them endearing or even fall in love with them? Leave aside the general impracticality or undesirability of doing such a thing--do you think it's possible?
119: I think you can come to love someone by using this method; but "falling in love", as the phrase is generally understood, is a different thing entirely. I don't think "falling in love" can be willed.
Isn't that how arranged marriages usually worked?
I'm not sure one could do it if there are legitimate alternatives, but in the absence of any, sure.
Sounds like someone has an arranged marriage on the horizon.
I think you can come to love someone by using this method
Or, perhaps they could at least love to come on that person.
Do you really need a method for that?
123: Years from now, when we've all nuked each other, and cockroaches and robots have eaten all our remains, I hope that aliens find the unfogged servers, still whirring away alongside the Yucca nuclear reserves, and they muse on the implications of the great come to love vs. love to come controversy that so divided our civilization.
125: It would be awesome if centuries from now Unfogged was the only remaining relic of our civilization and historians had to reconstruct our society based exclusively on the archives.
the great come to love vs. love to come controversy that so divided our civilization
Perhaps it could divide the blog. But so far, 15 minutes of this, and not one jackboot of feminist oppression has come down. I'm a little disappointed.
Hey, everyone loves to come. Even feminists.
But do they love the projectile come?
I'm intrigued by the "it's all in the wrist" above. Perhaps there's some kind of lever action at work, like with an atlatl.
132: I say, keep them aliens guessin'. Once they start waterboarding, those cockroaches will make up all sorts of stories.
Catapults*, people. Catapults.
*I recognize that this is not helpful to the inquiry at-hand, but rather, we're fighting the fight of teh Future.
I am downloading so much klezmer music right now. I was inspired by dim memories of seeing the Chicago Klezmer Ensemble at the U of C Folk Festival in 2005, at which the clarinetist and leader announced that he had just enough time to introduce the band if they were going to play what they had planned, so he did so and then they played an amazing set, and by listening to the track "Violin Duet" from Black Ox Orkestar's Nisht Azoy. The neat thing about the CKE was that not only did they construct their own cembalom, but their bassist played only arco, none of this jazzy pizzicato crap.
Catapults*, people. Catapults.
I might just be incredibly tired, but it looks kind of like the action of a spear-thrower (as illuminated by gswift) and the action of a trebuchet are kind of similar.
I can't believe I couldn't remember "trebuchet".
Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will come on the world
re: 134
I take it you have the Don Byron 'Plays the Music of Mickey Katz' klezmer album? If not, get thee to a record shop.
Sounds like someone has an arranged marriage on the horizon.
HA! That is so completely totally not the situation I was thinking of. I was, in fact, thinking of exactly the symmetric inverse of #87 to begin with--when the problem is not that A loves B and must get over B, for whatever reason but when A loves B and B might appreciate A but not love A, but rather want to. I.e. we always expect people to make themselves stop loving, but we rarely exhort people to start loving. I just want to know why there is no symmetric opposite of "getting over someone." I suppose in an arranged marriage one might hope for that outcome, but since the marriage is held together by the external support of society, it's not really the same thing at all. If you can force yourself to get over someone, why can't you force yourself to get into someone? (Uh .. right.)
General consensus always seems to be no, but I wonder if it's just conventional wisdom.
125: It would be awesome if centuries from now Unfogged was the only remaining relic of our civilization and historians had to reconstruct our society based exclusively on the archives.
heh. agreed.
138: I just want to know why there is no symmetric opposite of "getting over someone."
This is an interesting question. A guess: perhaps it's because the purpose of "getting over someone" is to put an end to pain. Not loving someone is not usually a problem except in marriages or families, and in those cases people are sometimes exhorted to love their family members.
Also, I imagine some Christians take seriously the exhortation to "love thy neighbor".
Otherwise, yeah, it's rarer.
Isn't this question the whole theme of the Henrietta Carbury plot of The Way We Live Now?: her mother's exhortations to love the man who's always wanted to marry Henrietta, of whom she thinks highly, but whom she just does not quite love--her own internal questioning of why she does not love someone who she knows to be good--the presence of another whom she does love and who loves her, but whose station in life is not that of his rival--the broader question touching on all the potential marriages in the book of how much love should enter into matrimonial decisions, and how should other considerations be taken into account.
And reversing it: her suitor's decision that he can love Henrietta and only Henrietta--that he cannot marry another as he cannot love, nor learn to love, another--that he is willing to live as a bachelor his whole life if she turns him down--the connection between this and his unwillingness or inability to change himself and his life in other ways as the times change--the connection to the title.
Uh-oh, that puts us in the Victorian Lit part of the semester. Don't think of the Queen!
"mother's exhortations to love" s/b "mother's exhortations to marry": Henrietta asks the love question of herself.
Henrietta passed the whole day alone. She did not see her cousin from breakfast till he appeared in the drawing-room before dinner. But she was thinking of him during every minute of the day,—how good he was, how honest, how thoroughly entitled to demand at any rate kindness at her hand! Her mother had spoken of him as of one who might be regarded as all but dead and buried, simply because of his love for her. Could it be true that his constancy was such that he would never marry unless she would take his hand? She came to think of him with more tenderness than she had ever felt before, but, yet, she would not tell herself she loved him. It might, perhaps, be her duty to give herself to him without loving him,—because he was so good; but she was sure that she did not love him.
...
But in spite of all this there had in truth grown up in her bosom a feeling of tenderness towards her cousin so strong that it almost tempted her to declare to herself that he ought to have what he wanted, simply because he wanted it. He was so good, so noble, so generous, so devoted, that it almost seemed to her that she could not be justified in refusing him. And she had gone entirely over to his side in regard to the Melmottes. Her mother had talked to her of the charm of Mr Melmotte's money, till her very heart had been sickened. There was nothing noble there; but, as contrasted with that, Roger's conduct and bearing were those of a fine gentleman who knew neither fear nor shame. Should such a one be doomed to pine for ever because a girl could not love him,—a man born to be loved, if nobility and tenderness and truth were lovely!
134: B-Wo, on the off chance you're not familiar with Hasidic New Wave, I offer this. I find "The Frank Zappa Memorial Bris" and "Giuliani Uber Alles" to be particularly inspired.
Oh yeah, this post was about more than klezmer. AWB, I read the breakup posts on your site -- that's awful, I'm sorry. I guarantee you that your extreme vulnerability is fucking with your head concerning your student situation. I'd recommend a non-sexual solution (do as I say, not as I did): hang out with friends -- reconnect with old ones, make new ones -- and hang out a lot. I can pretty much promise you that your students' flirtation will soon become considerably less threatening, if not trivial.
If you want to be of most use to the Unfoggetariat, though, you need to hook up with a married man and/or hire an escort, and report back.
143: I'll do what I can, and I really appreciate the sympathy. In the cold, clear, uh, still-dark of morning, this "problem" seems really stupid and I'm embarrassed I put it forward. But talk to me at 3pm! Oh, Nelly! Thanks for all the great and thoughtful advice, Unfoggetariat!
It's not really true that all 21 year olds are bad in bed, though no one's saying seriously they are, I guess.
Sounds like a research proposal in the making, Tia. Some kind of grand census.
you need to hook up with a married man
North Carolina is beautiful in the autumn.
I haven't read all the proceeding 147 comments, but has anyone suggested that you have a wank?
Many of the first 10 comments were along the lines of "have a boink," which is similar enough and probably preferable.
re: 148
Good advice, and applicable to so many other life-problems too!
I too have only skimmed much of the thread, but permit me to say what I don't think anybody else has mentioned: Beautiful young people flirting with you? I should have such problems!
To add, very late in the conversation (and really when I should be leaving for work):
A possibly de-eroticizing factor might be this: probably one or two of the other students in your afternoon section are watching the whole thing with a jaundiced eye. I recall being very angry about a situation like this when I was younger, because the professor paid a huge amount of attention to the cute little student flirting with him and neglected the rest of us. Moreover, I remember thinking, "Yeah, it's so great to see that pretty is still most important even actually in the moment in class at a good school." I had a lasting dislike of both student (which was awkward since she was in my program and showed up with her little hair tosses and hipster haircuts and off-shoulder shirts all the time) and professor, which was not awkward because I simply avoided all his other classes. (I would add that I wrote a good end-of-class evaluation of him anyway and felt very virtuous.) The whole thing was really depressing, though, because I had thought--silly me--that I would finally be in a situation where looks were not quite as important as they were in high school. Thus began a powerful disillusionment with academia.
(Although, AWB, you seem like a much more interesting professor and nicer person than this fellow was.)
"How do I kill it?"
If ignoring it all won't work, I suggest a game of six cartridge Russian Roulette. Either that, or let's all give Foley a pass too.
Get a medical book with pictures of genitals in the final stage of various horrible infections and diseases. Paste these all around your computer or other workstation for the duration of the semester.
Read everything you can about Mark Foley. Copy and paste everything you read into your computer and use the "search and replace" function to put your own name into the story. Paste those next to the diseased pictures.
Anything that interrupts the mindframe that you're in, really--I think folks are right that you're creating a situation for yourself, on some level, for reasons that you yourself have identified (current emotional vulnerability). Such mindtraps are powerful.
A few thoughts. First, it's probably wrecking you this week because of the breakup, which means that you might just need to wait it out for a few days. Not that you'll be completely over the breakup soon, but your feelings about it will change in a way that might keep it from feeding into this thing.
Would it work to have the class hold you accountable? That is, I think Frowner's right, and it's annoying other people. It would take a certain amount of grace to do this deftly, but an nasty putdown in front of the rest of the class that makes the dynamic explicit might make it impossible to do anything stupid in future, and might also piss them off enough to make them stop. Something along the lines of: [One of them is inappropriately flirtatious] "Are you trying to raise your grade? I'm afraid we have rules against that."
That's not exactly right, but something that makes it explicit to the rest of the class that you find their behavior inappropriate, so that you're publicly committed to not playing along.
But this really must suck for you, especially right now.
First time commentator...please be gentle, yo.
Been there. Done that.
Nix to the faculty share.
Friends and family might not grok the full gestalt.
You can analyze it all you want, make a case for transference/counter-transference (in my world) or accept it as a case of hot monkey love.
If you can let it be...watch it and its effects on your self...notice its shift and change and double-back punch like a muthuh...you'll get more from the experience than you now know.
In other words, don't kill it.
What you resist, persists.
Embrace it, baby, so it doesn't embrace and destroy...
or you can "act out".
Make sure you're ready for the consequences if you do. Some of us are...and some of us ain't.
Ain't learnin' a bitch?
(great site, btw)
Late to the thread, but a cold stare whenever the student pulls any mess, followed by ignoring whatever he says & addressing someone else, ought to work ...
This is like some amazing French film. AWB, I don't envy you, except that I totally do.
Saheli, If you need someone to save you from an arranged marriage, feel free to e-mail me.
More generally, I keep hoping to cause a major sex scandal at the seminary, but it keeps not happening. (This is a somewhat different situation, as all of the students there are graduate students.)
By 26, most people are pretty good in bed.
Frowner's 152 makes an excellent point.
What you resist, persists.
Kip Hawley is my god.
in line with Frowner 152 and Burke 154:
if you need more reasons to stop thinking of yourself as the center of your own brilliant romantic movie, and start seeing yourself in the potentially cold and unflattering light of reality, try this:
read a good selection of the kind of psych studies that are done in universities all the time. many of them involve having confederates act in a mildly flirtatious way in order to study the reactions of people who don't know they're being watched.
There are lots of these studies going on at any given time in a large university--some of them run by researchers, some students in study design or human psych classes.
So--any time people seem to be acting a little abnormally around you on a campus--e.g. aggressively flirtatious--it's worth considering that they may be running a psych experiment, and asking yourself whether you want your reaction written up as part of a psych study.
Or rather, it's worth thinking about *how* you want to be written up.
By 60, most guys are fantastic, because they have the virility of .25 men and know how to marshal it effectively.
And then others are just harping about the relationship-free life.
163
yeah, John, what some people fail to appreciate is the sheer hotness value of all that lush, vibrant, luxuriant hair that old guys get around the edge of their ears.
The young punks just can't compete.
162: I am confident that a psych experiment creating the circumstances as described by AWB would not make it past the human subjects committee.
I take it you have the Don Byron 'Plays the Music of Mickey Katz' klezmer album? If not, get thee to a record shop.
Why is the current klezmer revival so clarinet-centric? Is it because it's practiced by jazzers? What about a new klezmer band with just violin, dulcimer, bass and accordion?
This is fascinating, and I'm sorry I missed it.
It seems to me that the big issue is that old classic, how to avoid weakness of will. It's important to remember, in this particular case, that people typically underestimate the effects of sexual arousal on decisionmaking, so it's critical to avoid the near occasion of sin. It's less taxing to avoid situations in which temptation is predictable or foreseeable than to resist temptation.
With students, this just involves following standard procedure: open doors, no interactions that aren't observed, and so on.
I wouldn't tell anyone you don't trust absolutely that you're afraid of giving in to temptation. I might, however, tell someone that you feel that these students are really pushing the envelope w/r/t acceptable behavior. That starts a sort of paper trail that might come in handy later. It might also help you to reconceive the situation. Vividly imagining the pain and shame of endangering your career over something like this might also help to put it in perspective.
(Hypothetically, some have found that a useful chilling effect is achieved by imagining saying to the dearly beloved and respected advisor: "Yes, I threw away years of labor for 1.7 minutes of amusement." Thinking of the look of pity and sadness on beloved advisor's face does wonders for one's ability to put things in perspective.)
If I understand it right, however, the career in question is one of an American academic, in which case I say go for it; the chance of a thumping good threesome combined with an exit from the academic gulag and a chance to do something more interesting and better paid looks like "short term gain, long term gain".
blah blah guild of scholars, joy of pedagogy, etc. Oh bloody well all right have it your way. I now upgrade my earlier advice; the correct solution is to masturbate compulsively every few minutes for the next 72 hours such that you are so physically sore that even the thought of doing something naughty causes you pain.
actually thinking about it, would it help with the attractiveness of my "fuck the academic gulag" line of advice if I pointed out that your university has been instrumental in creating the conditions in which you have been sexually harassed by two students and clearly has no proper procedures for supporting you, so you might be able to start your new post-academic career cushioned with the proceeds of a whacking great hostile environment lawsuit. After the lawyers' fees and my commission have been deducted obviously.
119: Yes. I really enjoy focusing on the attractive characteristics of X person who I'm not otherwise attracted to and teaching myself to think of them as hot.
129: They'd think our society was much more interesting than it actually is.
152: Maybe. My sense of things is that if the prof's reaction to flirting is to turn the flirter into the class whipping boy (i.e., to flirt back by giving the flirter shit, mock-scolding them when they haven't done the reading or are late, etc.) the class ends up feeling sorry for the flirter, and it indirectly keeps the less bold students in line, and only the flirter himself (who is bold, after all, or wouldn't be flirting) thoroughly gets that he's being favored.
171: I guess it depends on what exactly is going on. My experience of these situations is that students do grasp that the flirted-with is a favorite, and that it does have a negative effect more times than not. I say this based on my experience in crappy class, based on conversations with fellow students, and based on one conversation with a friend who was very intimidated by my friendship (not flirting, just friendship) with the professor, which spilled over into the class and should not have. My friend commented that she felt like here was Frowner, miss smartypants herself, who had this priviledged relation to the professor based on being all smart and special (and I am do come across as reasonable intelligent when seen among the Normals, and I have an awfully nice collection of shoes and accessories) and that friend felt like she couldn't chat with the professor before or after class because I was there with witty banter all the damn time.
Now, there's this certain strain of cultural studies where the idea is "Be tough, be strong, don't pity the weak or insecure because they must suffer in order to be formed as scholars or just to grow up into tough strong human beings," (The Deleuze/ destroy the negative strain, I gather). But I still don't think that asking students and professors to step it down a notch with flirting and friendship while actually in class is giving in to weakness and overindulging the insecure.
I just don't think it's a good idea to set up a class where there's one student who is the special one. This dynamic develops among students on its own frequently enough as it is. Not to mention that it gives the smart, sparkly students an exaggerated sense of their own importance.
171: Although I do have to wonder, what's the commission for advice to masturbate more? A percentage seems inapplicable somehow.
I think students pick up on the flirting favoritism; I did as an undergrad. But it occurs to me that the dynamic may differ if the professor/authorityfigure is male rather than female.
Also, FL is deliciously medieval. Negligent omission! negligent omission!
155: I'm wondering if there's a way to enlist the rest of the class in suppressing the behavior that doesn't involve putting down one of the participants. AWB: you said you've shared the breakup with this class, right? So how about just telling them that while normally you are fine with joking around, right now you're not in a good place to respond to teasing, and you want the class to be more strictly focused on the work for a few weeks? Then if either of them starts getting into it again, just tell them "look, I told you I'm not in the mood for teasing right now." Make it about "teasing" rather than "flirting" and they won't need to get embarrassed about the sexual undercurrents in front of their peers (and the peers don't need to be so embarrassed about helping to squelch it, either).
I think what Labs is really trying to say is:
When the world rushes in,
And you've been kept away
Oh you can get swept away
By the smiles and the promises
You'll forget yourself
If you let yourself
So hold tight to all the things you believe and
Be strong and you'll know what's right and wrong
My feeble story along similar lines, with identifying detail stripped out as much as I can. I'm often on the receiving end of crushes, as are we (teachers) all and it's almost invariably cute-but-nothing-more. [OK, vaguely flattering too, but that's it.] Taught a girl a few years ago, however, who really responded to me -- and I to her. Seriously. Way more than I should have. Sought advice from my friends on how to ask her out (after the semester, natch); the near-uniform response was "Are you fucking crazy?" so no dice.
After she ceased being my student I sort of figured that was it. Well, she kept showing up to talk to me -- about once a month or so? -- just to touch base and chat. Eventually she mustered the courage to ask me for a letter of recommendation (which I gladly supplied, since I respect the hell out of her studiousness irrespective of any personal feelings)... but again, when I figured our relationship would terminate, she kept coming by to visit me and even gave me a few small tchotchkes.
A year went by, I was single, and I thought... what the hell? Let's see where we stand. Long story short: although nothing's certain, our friendship's probably over and I'm still single. I made no inappropriate moves -- if anything, I was probably too appropriate -- and my hastily assembled (and very put-upon) crew of seven or eight friends all agree that the signals I was receiving didn't betoken the reaction I got... but that's how the cookie crumbled.
Hope that helps with your dilemma there, AWB. May you find the wisdom that I apparently never did.
poetic 87: "To avoid enticement into the snares of love is not so difficult as, once entrapped, to escape out of the toils and snap the tenacious knots of Venus. And yet, be you never so tightly entangled and embrangled, you can still free yourself from the danger unless you stand in the way of your own freedom. First, you should concentrate on all the faults of mind or body of her whom you pursue and lust after..."
poetic 1, 148: "If you find yourself thus passionately enamoured of an individual, you should keep well away from such images [sc. mental images of the beloved]. Thrust from you anything that might feed your passion, and turn your mind elsewhere. Ejaculate the build-up of seed promiscuously and do not hold on to it -- by clinging to it you assure yourself the certainty of heartsickness and pain. With nourishment the festering sore quickens and strengthens. Day by day the madness heightens and the grief deepens. Your only remedy is to lance the first wound with new incisions; to salve it, while it is still fresh, with promiscuous attachments or to guide the motions of your mind into a different direction."
Lucretius IV.1147-1154, 1063-1073 (approximately; I'm not going to the library just to look up the Latin), tr. R. E. Latham
Although I do have to wonder, what's the commission for advice to masturbate more?
I believe that until this weekend, that commission was the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, right. Now there is no such commission, at least not within the US government.
what's the commission for advice to masturbate more?
Where have you gone, Jocelyn Elders?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
I should add here that today was much better. I had a very good talk with a very good male friend about their behavior (not my momentary temptations) over lunch. He didn't have any advice, but was sympathetic. I noticed when I saw them today that I could, this time, make them recede into the class.
The problem, I discovered, was not that I was dishing it back to them, but that I wasn't dishing it equally to the rest of the class! Making lengthy eye-contact, smiling, being dramatically friendly: all AWB students should get this treatment! Valmont and Merteuil neutralized by no longer being special.
>Why is the current klezmer revival so clarinet-centric? Is it because it's practiced by jazzers? What about a new klezmer band with just violin, dulcimer, bass and accordion?
The Jewish Benny Goodman is one of the best nicknames of all-time.
181: You truly are the hero!
"The Jewish Benny Goodman is one of the best nicknames of all-time."
Well, Benny himself 1926-30 sounded very much like a Klezmer player, really he did. There are strong echoes in Ziggy Elman and Irving Fazola too, as you might expect.
Some of Artie Shaw's early stuff was pure Klezmer, too. I remember listening to a Klezmer band being interviewed on the BBC a few years back, and when they were asked to play they did a number I'd owned Shaw's version of for decades.
